October 28

October 28, 2018 — jeffstrand

2000 words on Ferocious yesterday and 1000 words today, bringing the total to 21,000. Wondering how long I can stretch out this particular sequence; really, I’d like it to be almost the length of a novella, but it depends how much I can wring out of a fairly simple setup. I know the big turning points of this book but not the details, so we’ll see what happens.

My essay for the StokerCon 2019 souvenir book got extremely good feedback. This wasn’t unexpected. Sometimes I send off a piece and wonder if the editor is going to respond with “WTF were you thinking, Strand???” and sometimes I know I sent them exactly what they wanted. This was the latter.

Last night’s Scary Fireside Stories for Halloween event was an unqualified success. We had a nice big crowd, the weather cooperated, and many s’mores were consumed, even though by my observation about 97% of the marshmallows burst into flame. (I ended up going with “Jigsaw Puzzle” as my story.) The audience was into all of the stories–it’s often hard to gauge the success of a non-funny piece, but there were shudders throughout the evening. As a super-special surprise bonus, the legendary Seed & Feed Marching Abominable showed up to play a couple of songs, causing many to almost wet themselves with glee.

This will definitely be an annual event. Thanks to Brian Kirk for organizing it, and thanks to me for doing an exquisite job of carrying stuff beforehand AND afterward. If you were in awe of how well the folding chairs had been transported from one location to another, I’m the one to praise.